16 BOMBYX MORI. 
Letter from a Prominent Silk Grower. 
Williamsburg, Kansas, ) 
July 27, 1882. \ 
Miss M. M. Davidson, 
Junction City, Kansas : 
Your favor of 22nd inst., came duly, and I am pleased to know 
you succeeded so well with your silkworms. The rearing of silk- 
worms is a very simple business, requiring but little capital and such 
care as can be given to it in most families without seriously interfer- 
ing with domestic labors. 
The only open question with us is market for cocoons; and this, 
in my judgment, depends upon the successful establishment of 
rilatures. Hand reeling is a slow, tedious process, and compared 
with the work done in well organized reeling establishments and by 
trained experts, it is costly in several ways: first, because the hand 
reel requires the labor of two persons to operate it — one to turn the 
reel and one to attend to the cocoons — whereas one girl can attend 
several reels driven by power; second, silk reeling is a very delicate 
operation ; the fiber is fine and unless the reeler. is thoroughly skill- 
ful, she will waste more than the value of her wages. Hand reeling 
in the family will be rather an incident than a permanent occupation. 
At home niuch unskilful work will be done and much waste silk 
made ; whereas in the organized filature, the labor is continuous and 
the reeler becomes expert, or loses her place. 
Another advantage of moment is that in the filature, the cocoons 
can be graded, as cotton must be graded, with reference to its fitness 
for particular uses. In the family which produces one hundred to 
three hundred pounds of cocoons, grading is impracticable. A 
further important advantage the organized establishment has is that 
the manufacturers can there find a uniform product in quantities to 
suit ; while in family reeling the quantity would be small, a few 
pounds, at most, in one place, and the product variable, some of it 
well reeled, somcjof it'badly reeled — that is the thread will be uneven 
from lack of skill in adding new fiber as the old runs off, or from a 
difference in the number of fibers to the thread. Silk thus produced 
and collected would be less valuable to the manufacturer. 
There is a broad belt across our continent well adapted to silk 
production and the interest in the business is increasing at such rate 
that attention has within the last two years been given to reeling as 
an organized industry. Edward Serrell, Jr., hasinvented an auto- 
matic stop motion reel, and several parties in this country propose 
to establish filatures. Among them the Mississippi Silk Company, 
at Corinth, Mississippi, L. S. Crozier, manager, they will test the 
Serrell reel. If successiul, silk may become a staple product in 
America. 
i Cocoons at fifty cents per pound, green, or one dollar and fifty 
cents per pound, dry, will pay very well, more especially as the in- 
come to the family will be almost "a gratuity-— an addition with but 
